The quick hit

Jon Favreau's story of a middle-aged chef on the skids trying to become a comeback kid is too self-consciously "charming."

Grade: B-

Writer-director–star Jon Favreau, who wrote the script for “Swingers” and directed “Iron Man,” returns to indies with this excessively ingratiating foodie/family movie. He plays Los Angeles chef Carl Casper, who regains his edge when a critic (Oliver Platt) pans his gilded-cage restaurant, where he’s paid well by an owner (Dustin Hoffman) who insists on controlling the menu. After Casper rants in the critic’s face and diners post the meltdown on YouTube (his ignorance of social media is a major part of the plot), he becomes, incredibly, both notorious and unemployable.

Casper flies with his gorgeous ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) and the bright, adoring son he’s neglected (Emjay Anthony) to Miami, the scene of his first big splash. There he accepts a beat-up food truck from his ex-wife’s ex-husband (Robert Downey Jr.). The result is an upscale underdog tale with unsurprising twists and several messages: Follow your bliss, treasure your child, and (my favorite) families that cook Cubanos together, become true hermanos together.

The film’s sentimental contours contain a few piquant morsels. Casper’s top staff members – Bobby Cannavale as his sous chef, John Leguizamo as his top line cook, and Scarlett Johansson as the hostess – respond in believably conflicted ways when the man who pays them makes ultimatums to the man who inspired and befriended them. Leguizamo is engaging as the salsa of the earth, and Downey injects a welcome shot of comic originality as an eccentric construction tycoon, melding personal history and present catastrophes in a crispy-cool onslaught of deadpan confessions and non sequiturs.

As a director, Favreau keeps his music and his palette bold; the grass-roots American food and road views look inviting. But as a writer, Favreau puts protective covers on the story’s knife-like points and shapes its conflicts every which way. From the start, for example, the movie depicts the critic alternately as villain, truth-teller and savior – whichever will spark the most crowd-pleasing scene at the moment. Once the chef’s rant goes viral, he wonders whether people are laughing with him or at him. The answer, he learns, is “both.” In the movie, Favreau wants you to laugh with him, cry with him and give him a big bear hug, too.

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